Most entrepreneurs would salivate at the prospect of their invention being valued at $250 million practically overnight. But for one group of twentysomething guys writing code in a Cambridge apartment, the wild interest in their product can feel more like a nine-figure distraction.

The market for buying, selling and learning about visual art online is getting a significant boost today. Artsy, the New York startup that has positioned itself as the go-to place for all things arty — a platform for people to learn about visual art online as well as explore opportunities to buy and sell work — has raised $50 million in funding.

As New Jersey awaits the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on a case concerning whether it can allow sports betting within its borders, an Atlantic City casino is launching daily fantasy sports contests for money.

Wellness Coaches has selected Twine Health as a core technology partner to help improve the health, safety and well-being of employees. Wellness Coaches currently delivers its health and safety services to more than 500 employee worksites in 35 states, and has had more than 5 million coaching sessions with over 250,000 employees.

A lot of things are happening in the world of cryptocurrency as of late. Various currencies, assets, and tokens are all increasing in value right now. To some people, there does not appear to be a method to the madness. One coin that stands out over the past 24 hours is Siacoin. After a lengthy accumulation period, the currency finally surpassed the US$0.01 value. The bigger question is why this is happening right now.

RippleNami, a cloud-based data visualization platform, announced today it has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with BanQu, the first-ever blockchain technology platform and network that enables economic identities for refugees and impoverished people around the world. When these disruptive technologies unite, amazing innovation brings about dramatic change.

Euroclear, a trusted provider of post-trade services, and Paxos®, a financial technology company delivering pioneering blockchain solutions, are pleased to announce the successful completion of their second pilot for Euroclear Bankchain, the new blockchain settlement service for London bullion due to go live this year.

The name Zoox probably does not mean much to its neighbors, or even to electric vehicle fans seeking the birthplace of Tesla Motors, which started in this very building in 2004. But behind these glass walls and shuttered garages is one of the most buttoned-up and most valuable autonomous vehicle startups in the world.

Snapchat parent Snap Inc. officially filed its initial public offering on Thursday, planning to raise up to $3 billion, ahead of what is widely expected to be one of the biggest U.S. tech IPOs since Facebook.

Lightkeeper LLC™ ("Lightkeeper"), the leading provider of portfolio intelligence tools and customized reporting solutions for the hedge fund industry, is pleased to announce its latest major product update, Lightkeeper 3.0.

According to the Wall Street Journal, artificial intelligence spending is geared up for a major boom, and some of Silicon Valley's wealthiest are investing big to ensure AI's road ahead is not just safe but ethically sound.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is investing $50 million in Boston-based biotech firm Intarcia Therapeutics and plans to contribute another $90 million to the company in an effort to better prevent HIV in Africa.

The newly-formed company [Glansaol] — led by former Revlon CEO Alan Ennis — emerged on the scene this week in a big way when it announced its intentions to acquire Seattle cosmetics upstart Julep, as well as the acquisition of cosmetics company Laura Geller and the planned acquisition of Clark’s Botanicals.

Today, Luminoso Technologies, Inc., a global leader in artificial intelligence-based deep analytics, announced that the company’s software incorporating word embeddings can be run on a Raspberry Pi, or the equivalent of an iPhone 5.

Boston-based DraftKings and New York-based FanDuel have reached an agreement to merge, Dan Primack reported Wednesday afternoon, citing three sources. Primack later tweeted that a formal announcement is expected within a week.

Zoox Inc., the secretive Silicon Valley startup working to build its own self-driving cars,
has quietly raised another round of funding that puts its valuation at $1.55 billion, a big
jump from just a few months prior and a sign of increased interest in automotive
technology.

The usually quiet – but actively running – developers behind the decentralized cloud storage, Sia, have just released their most stable version yet: Sia v1.0.3.
David Vorick, the lead developer behind the project and Nebulous Labs co-founder, has been working on the project along with a small team of developers since 2014.

Uphold, the leading cloud-based financial platform, today announces the acquisition of Bitnet, as well as the appointment of Bitnet CEO and co-founder John McDonnell and Bitnet Chief Data Architect Jiri Novak to Uphold’s executive team.

Metamarkets, the leader in interactive analytics for programmatic marketing, announced today it has closed a credit facility with Wellington Financial LP and City National Bank totaling $14.25 million. This growth capital will help Metamarkets expand its engineering team and invest even further in its award-winning real-time data processing infrastructure.

Hyperloop One Inc. has hired a senior financial executive and raised $50 million in new financing to keep its development on track after an acrimonious lawsuit with the transportation startup’s co-founder.

Brent Callinicos has a reputation as one of the smartest financial minds in Silicon Valley. He helped spearhead Uber’s fastest years of growth as the ride-hailing startup’s chief financial officer, and served similar roles at Google and Microsoft. Now he’s heading to Hyperloop One, a futuristic transportation startup that has both a lot of potential and a lot of baggage.

PlaceIQ, the company building a new model of consumer behavior by connecting physical and digital activities across time, space, and mobile devices, today announced it has secured a strategic investment from Alibaba Group, the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company.

Building on the success of previous trials with AXA PPP Healthcare, BioBeats, the leader in digital health and artificial intelligence, has completed one of the largest studies on corporate stress and wellness with leading financial services company, BNP Paribas, an AXA PPP Healthcare client.

Paxos, a financial technology company delivering revolutionary blockchain solutions for the financial services industry, and Euroclear, one of the world's largest settlement houses, announced today that they are working on the development of a blockchain settlement service for the gold market, called Euroclear Bankchain.

Today, PhaseCapital announced that it has appointed Michael DePalma as Chief Executive Officer. In his new role for the Boston-based asset manager, DePalma will lead efforts to commercialize its current product offering, and leverage the firm’s formidable data, trading and technology platform to diversify its product set.

Intarcia Therapeutics, Inc. today announced the first closing of a major equity financing that puts the company in a strong strategic and financial position over the next 2-3 years as it prepares for the potential approval and launch of ITCA 650 late next year, and the parallel progression of several novel pipeline programs in major chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity and auto-immune/inflammation.

Many people have become familiar with bitcoin as a currency and the technological processes behind it. Bitcoin transactions are verified using the same open-source blockchain technology behind torrents and Tor.

As technology has evolved, the landscape dictating how companies can gain capital has changed drastically. There has never been as much access as there is now — especially with crowdfunding strategies available — but we still operate on a system that was created pre-Internet.

When money changes hands, it almost never literally touches human hands. Ask most people under the age of 30 when they last talked to a bank teller, and you might be surprised by how many can’t remember. Many people cut out the middleman in money transfers by using banking apps and depositing checks via mobile snapshots.

LinkedIn has acquired the predictive sales and marketing firm Fliptop in an effort to boost development of its own Sales Solutions offering. The professional social networking company says that the integration of the teams and technology will take several months. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

Impact investing allows one to help forward causes they care about, while reaping the benefits of good businesses. Even though this concept has been around for awhile, it is becoming even more prevalent with more resources and accessibility.

Openbay, the only nationwide online marketplace for auto repair, has partnered with AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE: AZO) to enable Boston-area consumers to comparison shop for and book automotive repair and maintenance services with a network of local professionals directly from AutoZone.com.

ItBit, a New York-based digital-currency exchange, opened its doors on Thursday to U.S. customers as a trust company. The 18-month old startup announced that it has received a trust company charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services that will allow it to operate in all 50 states as a fully regulated financial-services entity. ItBit also closed on a $25 million funding round, bringing its total capital raising to $32 million, and named several notable people to its board of directors, including former FDIC chairman Sheila Bair and former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.

Cricket’s Circle, which offers a baby registry and helps pregnant women decide which items they need to purchase, received backing from East Coast and West Coast investors in a $2.25 million seed round.

"Inside Arlyn," an in-production live music television series created in part by Austin country music legend Willie Nelson, has signed a partnership with the Raptor Group investment firm to finance the series and help it secure a distribution deal.

A couple of the Bay Area’s top artisan food companies are joining forces. Tartine, the popular San Francisco bakery that often sees long lines for its bread and pastries, is being acquired by Oakland-based Blue Bottle Coffee, and it has big plans for expansion.

Artsy (Artsy.net), the online platform for learning about and collecting
art, has raised $25MM in Series C funding led by Catterton, the leading consumer-focused private equity
firm. Michael Farello, a partner at the firm, will join Artsy’s board of directors.

Some hot news for Fancy, the social shopping platform based out of New York. The company has raised a Series D round of around $20 million, a strategic investment led by Mexico’s Carlos Slim Domit and CCC, a holding company out of Japan whose main business is the Tsutaya chain of book and media retailers.

This can’t be happening… again.
These words rang like a bell inside the mind of Joe De Sena in early 2011, as he began to come to terms with what seemed like the inevitable – the failure of yet another one of his ambitious business ideas.

The competition, not for the faint of heart, has timed obstacles requiring real athletic ability. People from all walks of life are finding their inner Spartan through the race. TODAY’s Jenna Wolfe reports.

On a sprawling farm in Vermont, Spartan Race founder Joe De Sena runs a business and a fitness crusade. He'll train anyone who shows up, with one major caveat: You must submit to his every cruel and unusual whim.

Drew Harrington and Amanda Klane, founders of Yasso® Frozen Greek Yogurt, the fast-growing, first-to-market frozen Greek yogurt bar that's made its way into 14,000 stores across the nation in three short years, have been named finalists for one of the country's most prestigious business awards: the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2014 Award.

Every June, some of the world's top endurance athletes — long distance cyclists, ultra-marathoners and Ironman triathlon competitors — gather in Pittsfield, Vt., to take part in what is arguably the greatest competition of will, strength and stamina the world has ever known.

What if your smartphone was actually smart enough to know the exact product you’re standing in front of in a store, without any help from your part? Or what if it could automatically receive offers related to what you’re watching on TV?

It's not every day you see one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL tossing the pigskin to a holiday mascot, but that day is today. Tom Brady pegged the Easter bunny with a football as part of an ad for UNREAL, a Boston candy company, resulting in what may be the best holiday advertisement of our time. Brady also took time to teach the bunny how to successfully celebrate a touchdown throw, which Peter Cottontail struggles with.

Run for miles. Jump over fire. Crawl under barbed wire. Get pummeled in what's called a Gladiator Arena.
And you pay more than $100 to do it.
Welcome to the Spartan Race and the world of obstacle racing, one of the fastest growing sports — and businesses — in the United States.

In the eight years since launching Nic + Zoe, a knitwear label named after her children, creative director Dorian Lightbown has set up a network of 950 specialty doors without much fanfare — until now.

LUSHING, N.Y. (January 17, 2013) – Spartan Race, the world’s leading obstacle racing series and Outside Magazine’s Best Obstacle Race in 2012, is bringing the Reebok Spartan Race Sprint to Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, in Flushing on Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 8 a.m.

The American Advertising Federation is launching the largest-ever advertising campaign in the industry trade group's history, a consumer push consisting of a series of out-of-home ads placed in airports nationwide.

About a year ago I read a blog post (sorry cannot remember where) on the best social media tools.
One of the tools mentioned was Fliptop. This is a tool that can take your email data, or your social follower data and append it with much more information on the individuals – e.g. if you have an email address then Fliptop can find all of the social profiles associated with that email address and append them to the email address. It can also run the same process starting with a Twitter handle.

It's exciting and refreshing to be able to visit different countries and places across the globe. Some people travel because they have business functions to attend to, while most want to experience other culture, to relax and meet new people.

American kids will carry home about 600 million pounds of commercial Halloween candy this month. And as they sleep, parents everywhere will begin the age-old process of tossing out the bulk of the booty

Security Point Media, the leader in airport passenger security checkpoint advertising and the innovator of the Secure Tray System worked up a plan to provide free bins to airports in exchange for the right to sell advertisements on the bins.

“In the Studio” closes out the summer months by hosting a repeat entrepreneur who started his first two companies right after college, both of which grew to modest sizes before imploding, and after moving to the Valley about five years ago to work as a product manager at a small venture-backed company, had an insight about the e-commerce potential of Facebook that led to his current company.

“In the Studio” closes out the summer months by hosting a repeat entrepreneur who started his first two companies right after college, both of which grew to modest sizes before imploding, and after moving to the Valley about five years ago to work as a product manager at a small venture-backed company, had an insight about the e-commerce potential of Facebook that led to his current company.

Pallotta’s firm, Raptor Capital Management, is investing in Spartan Race Inc., which runs a new breed of obstacle-race events that involve climbing walls, slogging through mud, and crawling under barbed wire.

SecurityPoint Media, a leading alternative advertising firm, in conjunction with JCDecaux, the world’s largest out of home advertising company, is implementing its SecureTray System® at security checkpoints in Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport.

Raptor Consumer Partners (“RCP”), a leading consumer-focused growth equity firm, announced today that it has made a minority investment in Nic + Zoe, a leading manufacturer of women’s apparel available in Nordstrom department stores as well as more than 800 specialty retailers nationwide.

Raptor Consumer Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm focused on consumer businesses, planned to announce its second investment this morning since launching quietly a year ago — and in both cases, the investments are for local companies.

Michael Bronner's son Nick loves candy. So much that the well- known entrepreneur started a candy company with his son, but one with a twist: it would not make chocolates with common junk food ingredients such as corn syrup and unhealthy oils.

Raptor Consumer Partners (“RCP”), a leading consumer-focused growth equity firm, today announced that it has partnered with Boston-based food company Unreal Brands, Inc. (“Unreal” or the “Company”) to help launch a line of “unjunked” chocolate candies in over 30,000 stores nationwide, beginning this summer.

Ticket Evolution, a software platform aimed at streamlining the distribution of tickets for large events, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Raptor Ventures (the venture arm of Raptor Group) and Dace Ventures.

His battle-ax is TheFancy.com, a Web site that launched in 2011 and aims to create a seamless integration between social media and e-commerce by enabling users to purchase products without leaving its platform.

GraphScience said SocialEngine is built on top of the Facebook advertising application-programming interface, and it uses proprietary algorithms to help marketers better target their promotional efforts.

As Facebook looks to scale its $1 billion profit for 2011 reported in its IPO filing, its data on about 845 million users is its chief asset. But the company has been restrained in what it offers fan-page owners.